I Made Hauntingly Colorful Paintings Of My Dead Ancestors

I painted these life-sized oil paintings from photos my family inherited. Growing up in a house cluttered with my mother’s genealogy research and old photographs spilling from every corner, I had a primal fear of anything Victorian. When I was 20, I had a dream in which an ancestor that died in childhood urged me to color her photograph. I’ve been coloring ever since.

This is a series I began over a decade ago and continue today with evolved technique and subject. Several of these oil paintings on canvas are on display for the month of October 2016 and available at Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago.

More info: mattkane.com

We three who knew the safety to breathe

We wait in song and lie

The Funeral of Peter Pan

The girl who dreamt my fate to be our saint

The most beautiful day I’ve had in the saddest month I can

I’m not that sorry you cry awake, my one and only never came

And one day lying on grass, you’ll decide to leave your parents in the past

Sunset oceans above her maple tree

The swaying back of her bright tambourine

When I was young, my hand was held by the glove I wear today

Gumballs under tongues

He used to walk through fields ashamed, divided by the eyes that wave

We surrender sorrow to the tall grass at murky meadow ponds

Twilight twigs scratched on window glass

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